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Postcards from the Election in France
Phew, that was really down to the wire. (Submitting this thing on time, that is — not the election.) Some deadlines have a bit of wriggle room, but not this one: France wasn’t going to postpone its election because I hadn’t finished my article. I ended up cutting it so close that the polls had already opened by the time my editors got the final pass. But I finished it, at least, before the results came in.
So here’s the link to the long-awaited article, which is in fact eight short articles. Yes, seriously. My plan was to write each individually, as standalone pieces. But I would have needed another week to do that properly, and I would have had to rustle up seven more editors. So I knit them into one, instead. The articles, not the editors. If you haven’t got time (or patience) to read eight articles about France, just pick one:
- Poudre de Perlimpinpin
- Monkey Eyeballs
- You, Madame, are no Margaret Thatcher
- The Horseshoe
- The Vice
- The Champs-Elysées and the Pattons of Our Basement
- May Day
- The Knife
And if you still want more when you’re done, you may have missed this when I wrote it: Last Minute Thoughts on Marine Le Pen.
Anyway, my infinitely-patient editors at The American Interest didn’t reproach me for sending all of that to them with only hours to go before the polls, nor even for sending them a frantic update explaining that a big thing had happened at the last minute, but I’d better not get into the details. I’ll bet they were cursing me privately, though. (I’m sorry about your weekend, Adam and Daniel.)
NB: All polling, by law, ends at midnight the Friday before the election, as does campaigning. And critically, in light of the massive hacking attack on Macron, so does “media coverage seen as swaying the election.” So this is what the headlines here look like right now:
I’ll report back when the results are in, but if you’ve read my article, you know what will happen.
Vive la France, and thank God for the reporting ban. I couldn’t be more pleased to have a great excuse not to write another word all weekend.
Published in General
Well, since he’s not running today, I assume I’d be breaking neither the letter nor the spirit of French law if I started a chat about this: Whodunnit, you think?*
Here’s my guess: Sarko.
Why? Because I think this one was a) an inside job: I reckon the Russians would have been almost as pleased to have Fillon in office as Marine, so I can’t see them pulling out the stops, or taking such risks, to cut him down — I mean: why?; b) Sarko was in a position to have known; c) cui bono? and d) He’s capable of it.
What’s your theory?
NB: Any speculation about this will by definition be a conspiracy theory, since it’s a theory about a conspiracy. We do know there really was a conspiracy: That information didn’t get in the hands of the Canard Enchaîné by itself. And no one here has inside information about how it happened — or if they do, I just can’t imagine Ricochet, of all places, is where they’d reveal it — so for sure, whatever we speculate here is just a theory for which we have no evidence. Put it together and you’ve got a conspiracy theory, which in principle is a violation of the CoC. So let me just stress: Playing whodunnit about the Fillon affair is a Sunday-morning game, not a serious argument.
PS: If anyone here has not been following the details of this election closely enough to know what happened to Fillon, that would be very understandable, so here’s a quick briefer: Basically, after he’d already won the Les Républicains primaries, Fillon’s candidacy was tanked by a series of leaks to the Canard Enchaîné — the paper to whom you leak if you’re serious about taking down a French politician — about the fake jobs he’d created for his family members. The scandal quickly became known (after his wife) as Penelopegate, and destroyed his chances in the second round.
How is it not? Many conservative politicians (from Winston Churchill to Margaret Thatcher*) supported it or its precursors; so have many left-wing politicians. The EU itself is not inherently right- or left-wing, that’s up to the politicians who comprise it.
*It’s not well-known that she supported it, but she did. She did not support monetary integration, however, which was prescient. But she campaigned avidly in favor of the 1975 referendum to keep Britain in the EEC. You can read one of her best-known speeches in that campaign here, and of course I wrote about it in my book about her.” These were her views:
I’m not sure I understand the question. No politician in France, literally not one, is a multiculturalist as Americans understand the term. It’s absolutely antithetical to core principles of the French state. I hate to keep referring to books I’ve written — I know it seems like I’m trying to sell myself, but I wrote about this quite a bit in this book in a chapter. You can also read an article I wrote about this about 12 years ago, here:
“Multiculturalism” wasn’t part of this election debate in France at all; it’s not a French political concept. This is something you might hear debated in Germany, or Britain, but not France.
I think that there is substantial difference between the EEC and the Eurocracy of today. I suspect Lady Thatcher might supplement the commentary she made then and not be particularly enthused by the way Brussels is unaccountable and not really representative.
I don’t easily read English-language newspapers either, but the meaning of that may be slightly different.
I just watched this documentary about how it was Estonia that essentially broke up the Soviet Union. I always remembered it being Lithuania that always seems like the troublesome South Carolina back then; I think people even made jokes about that back then.
I moved to France from a country — Turkey — where the government’s oppression of the people is repulsive, and don’t at all feel that France is such a country. It is true and obviously true that France’s constitution does not protect speech as robustly as does the United States’. The US Constitution sets the gold standard for the protection of speech in that it’s the only constitution, as far as I know, of a major nation that frames its commitment to freedom of expression as a limit. Congress shall make no law, period. (God Bless the Constitution of the United States Of America.)
But France doesn’t do badly at all at protecting speech, by global standards. In fact, according to some indices, France enjoys more press freedom than the US. Reporters without Borders, for example, ranks France 39th in the world, and the US 43rd.
Freedom House ranks France “free” — it’s highest possible score. On press freedom specifically, it ranks the US 23 and France 26 (out of a possible 100, with 100 “least free.”) So “repulsive oppression?” No.
And French law, even in this case, is far from “repulsive oppression.” That’s a term that shouldn’t be thrown around lightly. It suggests a false equivalence between France and countries where people really do suffer from repulsive oppression. It trivializes that which is genuinely repulsive and oppressive. What France has, in this case, in my view, is just a bad law, or one in need of updating — although I think reasonable people can make a case for it. Let me explain.
The law, which is longstanding, provides for a 44-hour media blackout on elections before a vote. The period is meant to allow people to reflect calmly before they cast their ballot and militate against voter intimidation and election fraud. It is an affront to the US Constitutional principle that the government shall make no laws abridging the freedom of speech. But the 1958 French Constitution is not framed that way, and thus the law is neither unconstitutional here, nor arbitrary.
The blackout starts at midnight Saturday and lasts until polling stations are closed Sunday. It’s a predictable, consistent, and limited, 44-hour period. This kind of law is called “Election silence,” or a “Blackout period,” and it’s similar to laws on the books in at least 40 other countries, including Australia, New Zealand, and Italy. In Ireland, for example, the blackout lasts from 2pm the day prior to the election to the close of the polls. (FYI, in 1992 the Supreme Court ruled in Burson v. Freeman that election silence could be imposed, on election day, within 100 feet of the polling station, but that anything more would be unconstitutional. So even in the US, election silence laws of a very limited kind have stood up in court).
It is not a law that can be made on the spot by the president, for no reason, or according to his whims or political calculations. The law was drafted and passed by the legitimately-elected French Parliament (comprised of the National Assembly and the Senate), whose power in turn rests with the French people. The law has been in place prior to every election France has held since it was passed half a century ago.
It very certainly isn’t (as I’m seeing some Americans on the Internet assert), a random decree issued by faceless bureaucrats — or by a single, powerful person — specifically to keep the news about these leaks from the public. Even if it had been discovered that Le Pen was a shape-shifting alien, once “election silence” descends, it descends. The media would not have been allowed to report on it, nor would her campaign have been allowed to respond to the charge. So this is completely unrelated to the content of the leaks, per se.
It would have been arbitrary and random to change the law because of these leaks — and it would also have been impossible, because French law can only be made and passed in its parliament.
So this law isn’t at all analogous to the hypothetical you describe of “Donald Trump ordering CNN, MSNBC, et al to not talk about the 2018 Mid-Terms starting the Sunday before Election Tuesday.” Trump doesn’t have the constitutional power to do this. The French National Assembly does. The law applies equally to all candidates; and it is widely supported by the French people — a fact that’s very relevant to assessing whether it constitutes “repulsive oppression.” If people have the subjective sense that the law expresses their own will about how the election should be conducted — and people here do have that sense — I think it’s possible to argue that it’s an inherently illiberal law or a dangerous precedent or outdated (as I would, on all three points), but not that it’s repulsively oppressive.
In fact, what I’m hearing right now — though obviously this is not a well-conducted poll, just anecdotes — are a lot of expressions of gratitude for this law, and the sense that it’s doing just what it was intended to do: I’m seeing and hearing people express the sense that clearly, someone — probably Russia — tried to mess with their election. No one in a sovereign nation takes well to this. So people are grateful both that the law is limiting the dissemination of the leaks, but also that it reinforces the idea that the period right before the vote is a quasi-sacred moment, one during which voters are to reflect upon the solemnity and gravity of the decision and their responsibility for it, not a last-minute chance for a freakshow.
It is true that if you break this, or any, law in France, you can expect a “polite” knock on their door followed by a visit to the “polite” police station. Or more precisely, any media outlet, pollster or citizen who violates these laws — for example by publishing leaked exit polls on Twitter — may be subject to a fine, depending on the nature of the violation. (For example, the law takes a particularly dim view of those who publish embargoed exit poll data). In reality, no one is going to be fined for gossipping about these leaks on Twitter — it would be impossible to enforce that; which is a sign the law is outdated. But the mainstream media is respecting the law, not least because their audiences would be disgusted if they didn’t. People like this law, and feel that it protects the dignity and the purpose of their elections.
To be clear: I do not support the law. Like all Americans who understand why our Constitution was written as it was, I think it’s dangerous to give any government the power, even in principle, to limit political speech in any way, for any reason. I don’t think this law is a bad, or an arbitrary, abuse of that power. But I don’t think any organ of any government should have that power, period. Still, let’s acknowledge that this is a uniquely American way of viewing things.
I also think the law is anachronistic: In the age of social media, the law can’t work as designed and in fact works to the opposite purpose. It no longer ensures a quiet, private reflection period before voting; it ensures that people are exposed to a lot of noise on social media that’s even less subject to vetting than it would be if politicians and the media were allowed to weigh in.
But unless you’re saying that all countries without First-Amendment-like protections for speech are “repulsively oppressive” — and that’s actually all countries apart from the US — there’s no reason in particular to find this law so strange or horrifying. And again, having lived in a country where such diktats are issued arbitrarily and extra-legally, where people do feel themselves to be repulsively oppressed, I would say these words are hugely meaningful: If we call this “repulsive oppression,” we have no vocabulary left to describe countries where the prisons are full of people who’ve made jokes on Twitter about the president-for-life. Many such countries exist.
France isn’t one of them.
Those two have been all over the news.
Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough, right?
Claire Berlinski, Ed. (View Comment):
Who else thought Blorgulax? Come on, be honest.
Yes. “By global standards” is the epitaph of liberty.
They wanted a trade bloc, not an unelected dictatorship that is so antithetical to Conservative orthodoxy.
Yes it is. Are you saying that Macron is not a Multiculturalist? He has admitted himself that he believes in multiculturalism.
That guy shaking Gorbachev’s hand at 6:40 was at my house last week for dinner. His name is Igor Grazin, and is one of the smartest people I know. He was the first to read the secret protocols of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact out loud in the Soviet Duma, and he’s one of the first people I turn to when I need to figure out what’s going on in Russia today.
Incidentally, this film has a golden moment after the introduction that puts to bed when or not Gorby was any kind of democrat, when he says that any discussions or reforms have to be done in the context of the current socialistic system. Gorbs’ little reform experiment just got away from him, due in part to a lot of the people in this documentary, who were saying one thing to his face but pushing towards re-independence behind his back.
The Lithuanians are a more hot-headed and pushed harder, faster, and they bore the brunt of the backlash, unfortunately.
We are two hours ahead of Paris time, so I imagine we’ll at least stay up for the exits tonight. It could be a long night if it is close. This is a vote that all of Europe is paying attention to this time, the biggest since the Brexit referendum last summer.
It was fairly favorable to Yeltsin before the effects of booze and the KGB led to the less dynamic Yeltsin we tend to remember.
Thank you for the recommendation. That was excellent.
I remember watching things as they transpired and thinking that Yeltsin, for all his faults, was the greatest Russian of the 20th century. The guy who kicks over the table is rarely the guy who gets the game reorganized afterward. Washington was a blessing that most people in this country now fail to appreciate for what it was that he actually accomplished after the Revolution.
Trump is no Conservative and many of his supporters recognized this while he was running. What I can’t understand is why people who support the EU, voted for Hillary Clinton, contribute to the cultural suicide of the west through Islamic immigration, and support open borders are considered Conservative. In fact I would argue it is these issues which have led so many right of center people to outright reject Conservatism. Now the right could go about trying to replace these voters, or they could change their stance on them. One thing is for sure though, the people will no longer let them have it both ways.
It looks like the election is done. Exit polls have Macron up by 30 points, even larger than he was polling.
Le Pen has congratulated Macron.
And that’s a wrap, everybody!
Not by me.
They aren’t considered Conservative by anyone. They’re fooling themselves, perhaps. Being a dyed-in-the-wool Leftist is hard for some of them to admit. That’s why so many of them call themselves “Centrists” and “Independents” because they are loath to admit they are part of a party that includes such creeps as Nancy Pelosi, Patty Murray, and Charles Schumer, and they watch television stations that include such creeps as Al Sharpton, Rachel Maddow, and Van Jones. So they come on here and pretend to be right-of-center, but if you grill them, you will be unable to find a single Conservative principle in which they truly believe.
Calling people liars is out of line.
Now now, no need to chuck a wobbly!
@claire, I believe a wise, handsome, and humble man– like, more humble than anyone in the world — told you after Geert bit the dust it was curtains for Le Pen.
This person I speak of is also too magnanimous to point out his many correct prognostications.
His temple hair is also not receding. It’s on hiatus.
Thanks for the coaching. I changed it.
Gimmie a break dude. Enough with the Conservatism refereeing. Right-wing populism broke the cardinal rule of Conservatism: Free Trade. To hell with Ideologies, I’m in for what works for America: Free Speech and Free Trade.
This lock-step litany of ideals you have laid down to conform to — now that’s straight out of the leftist “dyed-in-the-wool” playbook.
I call it as I see it, my friend. If you voted for Hillary, no matter the reason, you are not a Conservative. Period.
Damn it, its you JcT. You pulled a me and changed your picture.
In Claire’s (and partly my) defense — some of us had an ideological breakdown from this last election. I’ve always been an Independent (which is always badass to say, I don’t care what anyone thinks) but have never voted for a 3rd party candidate until this last election. Claire bared her heart on why she chose Hillary and it made sense. People bared their heart on why they chose Trump and they made sense as well (I bore my heart and it made no sense as per usual).
Point is, don’t make the Liberal mistake of demanding conditions on allies. Or you will find this pendulum shall swing back real quick.
Reasons to vote against Hillary: 237,432 reasons. Liar, crook, rape enabler, thief, briber, bribed, false witness…
Reason to vote for Hillary: I hate Trump.
Really? Does that sound logical? Nah. If you voted for Hillary, you’re not a Conservative. There’s just no getting around it.
By your definition. Anti-TPP and anti-NAFTA — thems economics as liberal as it gets, my friend.